Seeznak

Atlas Had It Easy

“This slight, momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”  - II Corinthians 4:17

We look forward to bliss in heaven. However, this Scripture informs us that standing in the unmitigated presence of our God is so excessively blissful as to be weighty. And we, as athletes, need to be trained by God in this life to bear the backbreaking glory of God. This is why we go through trials; we are being prepared, according to the gentle wisdom of God, to step into His presence as a snail might step into the shoes of Atlas.

So let us thank God for our trials, for, weighty as they now seem, they cannot compare to the insoluble majesty we will one day, happily, never escape from.

A Little Somp’n Somp’n About The Man

Check out Mark Driscoll’s posts on Spurgeon is the Man Week. 

I Have Not Yet Understood the Value of Gethsemane

 From J. R. Miller:

“Being in an agony–He prayed,” is the record of our Savior’s Gethsemane experience. The lesson stands for all time. Like a bright lamp, the little sentence shines amid the olive trees of the garden. It shows us the path to comfort in our time of sorrow. Never before or since–was there such grief as the Redeemer’s, that night. But in His prayer, He found comfort. As we watch Him the hour through, we see the agony changing as He prayed, until at last its bitterness was all gone–and sweet, blessed peace took its place. The gate of prayer is always the gate to comfort. There is no other way to consolation.

We may learn also from our Lord’s Gethsemane, how to pray in our Gethsemanes. God will never blame us for asking to have the cup removed, nor for the intensity of our supplication; but we must always pray with submission. It is when we say, in our deepest sorrow and intensity, “Not my will–but may Your will be done,” that comfort comes, that peace comes.

Pwned by God

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. -I Corinthians 6:9-11a

And such was I. So what is the difference now- am I no longer immoral, or idolatrous? No way. But what is the difference? Here the Word informs me in the next sentence:

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. - I Corinthians 6:11b

The only difference between myself and the ‘unrighteous’ is not the good or religiousy things I do; it is the grace of God in Christ.

This grace is the basis for all subsequent good works, though we (I, at least) are oft tempted to think of our goodness as a sort of booster shot for us to continue in God’s grace. That is clearly not the case in this passage, where Paul argues for our unquenchable pursuit of righteousness because we’ve already been irrevocably owned by our Lord.

You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. -I Corinthians 6:19b-20

On the Brain, Changing the Heart

Reasonably, I think, I have parenting on the brain. I pray that God may make me a father to Micaiah as He is a Father to me. So I’ve been chewing on the following quote from C. J. Mahaney, from a sermon on cross-centered parenting:

“Biblical parenting is seizing every opportunity to creatively and passionately preach the gospel to you children.”

O that my choices and decisions and words and temperament towards my little girl may point to the grace of Jesus Christ!

Too Wonderful for Me

I want to say that they didn’t tell me what it would be like, but they did. They used words like “incredible” and “amazing.” They used phrases such as “there’s nothing like it in the world” or “the best thing ever.” They said it would change my life. But I didn’t get it.

I simply couldn’t grasp the depth of the marvels that were in store for me in holding my very own, precious, tiny daughter. The hackneyed words and phrases were more of a sigh of defeat than a description of the thing, as those who had gone before me into parentaland submitted to the reluctant fact of humanity’s failure to adequately prepare the uninitiated.

Not surprisingly I find myself turning to God’s words to supply my happy lack of sufficient logorrhea (well, thesaurus.com also):

O Lord, you formed Micaiah’s inward parts;

you knitted her together in her mother’s womb.

I praise you, for my daughter is fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

Micaiah’s frame was not hidden from you,

when she was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw her unformed substance,

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for her,

when as yet there were none of them.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

-Psalm 139:13-16, 6

How to Feel Stuck for the Glory of God

 Don’t we all hit that brick wall of boredom at some point in our lives, when we feel as if our lives are static and useless? I’ve been there a few times, and I expect to be there again. It’s a feeling both great and small; great because everything worthwhile seems to be so far past my horizon, and small because of my inability to climb up from the tiny pit I find myself in.

Paul, of course, was crazy, but crazy in a way that helps me to see how those times in life that I feel trapped in uselessness might serve a greater purpose. Consider what he wrote to the Philippians while imprisoned in Ephesus:

12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

-Philippians 1:12-13

I see three things from this text which speak to us when we feel trapped in uselessness:

1. You are where you are for a reason.

Remember who Paul was writing to- the same Philippian church that was started during another prison stint, in which the earth quaked and wrists were unbound and a suicidal jailer was converted. God could have pulled Paul out of prison at anytime, but we know that God kept him there because his imprisonment was the greatest service he could make to “advance the gospel.”

1. Your limited circumstances display God’s unlimited glory.

It was through the confining chains of “what has happened to me” that God most used the apostle. While we’re not going to contribute to a new edition of the Bible, we can find encouragement in the fact that Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and probably I & II Timothy and Titus were written from prison. At Paul’s lowest point God gave him his greatest potency.

1. You have a job that you will never get fired from.

And that job is to display Christ. In the two verses, two groups of people are gaining knowledge of Christ because of the brick walls surrounding Paul: in v. 12, fellow Christians are being encouraged (“I want you to know, brothers…”) and unbelievers are being evangelized (“it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard…”).

You and I are not useless in any place, at any time. God’s mind-blowing purpose in our lives is greater than we can think or imagine. Let us celebrate a freedom that is greater than any bondage, be it spiritual, mental or physical.

Insert Affected, Knowing Smile

Here is a claim that we are quite prepared to roll our eyes at:

The claim of Scripture is that a specific kind of delight actually preserves, sustains, and ultimately saves those who are enduring affliction, and that brand of delight is focused on God’s Word:

If your law had not been my delight,

I would have perished in my affliction.

-Psalm 119:92

“The only way I made it,” the Psalmist tells his Lord, “was through finding, in Your law, joy of a greater potency than all my troubles. By Your precepts you have given me life!”

Do not roll your eyes at the simplicity of how to find this joy. It is very near, and it is very difficult. But it is delightful.

Ephesians 4:7-10 - A Different Kind of Victory

Martin Luther’s determination to “beat importunately” upon the Word of God has become a model for my studies, especially when I am to teach a text. I’ve been asked to preach at our church next week, on Ephesians 4:7-10. For the past few days, I really have felt as if I was beating to no avail. But I think I have found a small keyhole by which to enter into understanding the potency of the “grace [which] was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

The point of the passage is not, as I assumed on first reading the text, to advance our understanding of ourselves as the recipients of Christ’s gift; the point is to magnify Christ as the victorious giver, and how He gives. Although the broader context of the passage is indeed about the recipients, as Paul makes clear in the first six verses of chapter four, as well as the verses after our passage, these four verses are chiefly about the manner in which Christ gives to us.

The key is in the word “therefore” at the front of verse eight, which is clarifying the “measure of Christ’s gift,” which is, in turn, clarifying how “grace was given to us.” Verse eight points us to Psalm 68, a war song and an ode to the Lord’s victories. Paul is radically interpreting the Psalm to mean that the Lord’s glorious victory was achieved through the descent (what we call the incarnation) of the Son of God to earth, His death and resurrection, and His subsequent ascension to the throne of God.

This means that Christ’s humble life traversing the dusty roads of Judea, His embarrassing death as a criminal accursed by God, and His resurrection that has been debated, denied, and laughed at, is the greatest victory the world has ever seen- a triumph that has forever felled sin, the devil, and death.

It also means that the gifts which Christ has given to us through His Spirit are the spoils of war, which our Great King delights to bestow upon us.

A Song to Preach to Yourself

This song has fed my soul whenever it rattles around in my brain:

My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here,
Then why do I worry when trials are near!
Be hushed my dark spirit, the worst that can come
But shortens your journey, and hastens you home.

I have died to this world, and am hidden with Christ
So my mind will be set on this:
Glory is certain, for Christ is in me,
Glory is certain, for Christ is in me.

I dare not be seeking my comfort and bliss,
Or building my hopes in a place such as this;
I look for the city God promised and built,
Where Jesus has banished my sin and its guilt.

Afflictions may press me but cannot destroy,
One glimpse of His love turns them all into joy;
The tears of a lifetime will vanish away
When He stoops to dry them on that coming day.

So let Satan’s army assail me full force;
Their plans cannot help but to steady my course.
Come joys or come sorrows, whate’er may befall
An hour with my Savior will sweeten them all.

-Henry Lyte (1793-1847), updated by David L. Ward